Bernie Sanders' socialism would be a disaster for everyone

With the rise of Bernie Sanders as a serious contender for president, it is evident that many Americans are turning to socialism as the solution to our problems.  It is amazing how quickly the lessons of history are forgotten. These Americans should know that socialism has already been tried, and hundreds of millions of people suffered because of it.  The Soviet Union, China, India, and even the United States have already tried socialism in different forms.  Each and every time scarce resources were removed from free market based allocation, the standard of living significantly lagged or regressed compared to free economies.  In some cases, mass starvation resulted.

Bernie Sanders has self-identified as a democratic socialist. According to the constitution of the Democratic Socialists of America, the goal of socialism is to remove profit and loss as a mechanism for allocating resources. Instead, they would place bureaucrats in charge of most resources and production.  This is supposed to be okay because the bureaucrats are controlled by democratically elected officials. This, they believe, means that the people control the economy.

The problem with socialism is simple.  It removes true pricing as a means of transmitting information about how to allocate scarce resources.  Socialists want to shoot the messenger that tells them that something is scarce.  Socialists would eliminate profit.  Profit (and loss) is the price signal that indicates that capital has been put to good use.  Socialists want to provide “free” health care, extra time off, and college tuition.  Making things free hides the fact that these resources are scarce.  Lastly, socialists would eliminate wage disparity.  Wages are the signal of how productive labor is.  In all three cases I mentioned, the socialist economy will destroy, hide, or distort information about the reality that underlies the economy.  When society’s behavior doesn’t match reality, people suffer.

China, under Mao Zedong, adopted a completely socialized economy.  All production was governed by “the people” through government officials. In 1958 he instituted the “Great Leap Forward.” This was an ambitious plan to overtake western economies in industrial output.  Having eliminated the evils of capitalism (market driven pricing and allocation) Mao could realize the dream of socialist superiority.  Farmers were forced to give up private property and organize into communes.  Inefficient production methods were implemented by uninformed officials.  Planners mandated initiatives such as “backyard furnaces” for steel production, controversial agricultural techniques, and ill-planned irrigation projects.  The goal was utopian plenty for all, the result was economic devastation and the deadliest famine in history with a death toll of around 30 million. 

Democratic socialists are quick to distance themselves from communist failures such as these because they reject totalitarianism.  Yes, there are differences between communists and socialists in how power is maintained, but they have the same economic strategy: replacing market pricing with central planners.  The story of China’s economic successes over the last several decades has been the story of liberalization and the adoption of free market principles.

India, too, has tried socialism.  The Indian Constitution says India is a "Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic".  From the time of independence in 1947 until 1991 Indians lived under a system that has been called the License Raj.  This was a system of heavy handed control of the economy by government bureaucrats.  What resulted was half a century of stagnation.  When India abandoned central planning in 1991 it became one of the world's fastest growing economies.  The average growth rate jumped from 2% to 6%.  As Thomas Sowell put it, "The cumulative effect of growing three times as fast as before was that millions of Indians rose out of poverty".

Prior to liberalization, the Indian consumer would wait months, sometimes years to buy a car such as the Hindustan Ambassador...a copy of the British Morris Oxford which remained virtually unchanged for 40 years.  In state-owned banks, costumers would wait in lines that stretched out the door.  Indian business owners were saddled with so much red tape that it was easier to open new factories in foreign countries despite greater labor costs.  A poignant example of Indian socialism is this story about price controls: Poor in India Starve as Surplus Wheat Rots. 

Probably the most famous example of socialism is that of the Soviet Union.  In order to compare the USSR with Bernie Sander's ideal government, we must overlook the worst of communist oppression which is clearly not the goal of democratic socialists.  So, I will overlook the millions of deaths caused under Stalin and focus on the years afterwards.  The soviet economy was completely planned.  Everyone had a job.  Zero unemployment.  It sounds great until you realize that prices were not reflecting the reality of scarcity.  Everything was rationed by waiting in queues.  Quality and choice suffered.  Black and grey markets supplied people with services that the official economy could not provide.

Waste and inefficiency was rampant.  In Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell describes how Soviet planners mistakenly set too high a price on moleskins with the result that surplus pelts rotted in warehouses before they could be processed.  The planners ignored requests to lower the price for moleskins because they were too busy regulating another 24 million prices.  Socialism replaces distributed decision making (also known as liberty) with top-down control.  This control led to inefficiency across the board.  State operated farms were very inefficient.  Though only 3% of arable land was operated privately in 1980, that land was over 1000% more productive than state run farms.  As another example, Soviet Industry used more electricity than American industries while producing less.  Eventually the inefficiencies grew unbearable and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. 

Many people do not realize that the United States is also greatly influenced by socialism.  We have numerous examples of state planning interfering with a free allocation of resources.  A wave of government activism in the economy began with Woodrow Wilson when he signed the Federal Reserve Act.  The Federal Reserve System was one of the causes of the Great Depression.  The depression then led to an alphabet soup of programs, most of which ended up increasing the severity and lengthening the duration of the depression (See Burton Folsom's book New Deal Or Raw Deal).  Nixon used price controls.  Lyndon Johnson waged an unsuccessful war on poverty.  Laws intended to promote home ownership caused the housing boom, and later bust.  Government red tape of the last decade has led to a slow recovery.  We have too-big-to-fail businesses protected by government.  All the elements we have seen in India, China, and the Soviet Union exist in the United States to some degree.  The problems of a shrinking middle class, rising health care costs, and high college tuition are the result of socialistic intervention.  It is appalling that Bernie Sander's would prescribe more socialism as the antidote to the problems caused by socialism.

Bernie Sander's has said "I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway".  These are his ideal examples of democratic socialism.  He fails to understand that we are already like those countries.  Scandinavian countries rate closely with the United States in the Index of Economic Freedom.  The scores of the U.S. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway for 2016 are 75.4, 75.3, 72.0, and 70.8 respectively.   Where they may have high taxation, they make up for it with more business freedom and less corruption.  The United States federal government spends about 40% of GDP per year, much of it on social programs. When you take into account our debt, corporate taxes, and the hidden tax of inflation, our tax rates aren't that different than Scandinavia.  That is socialism.  Couldn't some of our problems be the result of the socialism we already have?  And couldn't some of Scandinavia's success be due to the free market capitalism they have?  The answer is yes and yes.  Just like India, recent economic success there is also the result of market liberalization.   

Free market based allocation of resources has been proven to be the most efficient and equitable method over the long term.  It is also more democratic than “democratic” socialism.  People voting for public officials are voting for a package deal taking the bad with the good.  Voters are also engaging in speculation since they are voting for unrealized promises.  And they cannot change their votes during long intervals between elections.  Thomas Sowell explains that in a free market, consumers make their choices every day. “A person and can buy one company’s milk and another company’s cheese…then they can change their minds a day or a week later and make wholly different choices.”  Nothing forces entrenched powers to kneel to the will of the people better than the great voting machine known as the Free Market.  

In short, socialists such as Bernie Sanders would destroy both of the things they claim to care about: democracy and prosperity.

The Threat of Excessive Sameness

This summer I have been touring the southern United States.  I have been in the valley of the Rio Grande, the bayous of Louisiana, the forests of Mississippi, and the reefs of Florida.   I marvel at the diverse landscapes and people.  I have tasted Cajun crawfish, New Orleans pralines, and Florida key lime ice cream.  I have experienced Hispanic culture in Miami and African American hospitality in Georgia.  I have seen people of different stripes.  Some excel in science, some have a love of history, some have faith, some have unique talent.

I like diversity.  I like places with different geography, cultures of all types, and people of all races.  I love the uniqueness of the different regions of our country.  I'm glad that we have distributed government that helps protect this diversity.

It is great that the world is smaller than ever with our modern communications and transportation systems.  We can experience diversity more easily than ever.  But this is a double edged sword.  We can contaminate people, places, and cultures more easily than ever too. There is a worrisome trend toward sameness.  Whenever I got outside of the historic districts, I was presented with the same gas stations, the same department stores, and the same food.  I am as guilty as anyone at patronizing multinational establishments.  When I walked into Walmart last week near Cape Canaveral, Florida, I felt like I was transported instantly to the Walmart back home in Colorado.

I am worried that we are nationalizing too much.   I was always on the lookout for interesting local foods and snacks at gas stations. But the offerings were exactly the same all across the country.  It is convenient to drive into a McDonald's and not have to worry about unknowns in price, food style, and service levels.  When you shop local establishments you risk being inconvenienced by the unexpected.  But that is what makes life interesting.

It isn't just the chain stores that introduce sameness.  Our ecosystems are being damaged by invasive species.  World travel has enabled people to bring with them exotic plants and animals that threaten local wildlife. Zebra mussels have invaded Texas, Asian hydrilla is clogging Louisiana bayous, and Burmese pythons have destroyed a large percentage of the fauna living in the Florida Everglades. This writer for the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bio-environmental Research also agrees:

 The phenomenal diffusion of species in new environments has many ecologists contemplating the possibility of a "global McEcosystem." Just as franchised fast food has homogenized local cuisines, species introduction may homogenize the world’s biodiversity.  (http://is.cbr.tulane.edu/InvasiveSpecies.html accessed 7/12/2015)

I also worry about cultural sameness.  When I was in the Acadian region of Louisiana, I didn't hear much French.  When I was in Georgia and South Carolina, I didn't hear as much southern drawl as I would have expected.  It could possibly be that I have spent too much time in the tourist areas.  Tourist sites attract people from all over.  When I went to a local ice cream shop near Charleston, the servers had a Scandinavian accent.  When I went to a fruit stand in Florida, it was run by Guatemalans.  I think the concept of "local" is being blurred.  At least I have heard a healthy dose of "ya'all".  I love that idiom.

Lastly, I worry about social and political sameness.  A few weeks ago the Supreme Court removed two more forms of regional distinctness: health care and marriage law.  We are fast going down the path of having a national identity that doesn't allow for regional variety in anything but the historical monuments (and even those are under attack**).  The Supreme court swept away the ability for state governments to reflect regional differences in civil law with respect to homosexual parternerships.  Marriage law was written by the supreme court.  This would make sense if the issue at hand was an inalienable right.  Like driving, hunting, or getting a college degree, marriage is a right conferred by authorities based on a charter decided upon by the people.  But now one-size-fits-all social and medical institutions are being laid down.  It's McDonalds, McEcosystem, and McMorality.  What is next?  Will SCOTUS decide that all states must have uniform laws with respect to gambling and prostitution?  Excessive sameness was not the design of our federal system.

The globalization of everything is a tide that probably cannot be turned back.  Europeans destroyed the way of life of the American native peoples.  Change and  homogenization is a fact of life.  But we shouldn't give up on distinctiveness.  I'm glad there are those that fight to preserve cultures.  Just as we can fight the invasive species and other damage to our ecosystem, we can hold the destructive forces at bay and, with effort, preserve some of the diversity we hold dear.


**After reading about the removal of the Confederate Flag from being flown at the South Carolina State capitol, I came to agree with the removal due to the special circumstances here. But there is no reason to erase every vestige of that history...the Confederate South was not an evil empire as modern revisionists are trying to portray.   It was misguided...but so have many governments been.  I see a lot of goodness in those people and I celebrate their sacrifices as much anyone else's.

Obama's Immigration Action: The right ends but the wrong means

I watched President Obama's immigration speech today and found myself in almost 100% agreement with the ends that he wants to achieve.  We do need to normalize what has become a black labor market.  It hurts our society to have millions of people living in the shadows.  We do benefit from the enthusiasm of energetic immigrants.  We have to accept that the border failures of the past are water over the bridge and that we are never going to deport 10 million illegal immigrants. The President's goal to end the shadow labor economy is justifiable and honorable.

But the ends do not always justify the means.  President Obama's action creates a new precedent that the executive branch can write law unilaterally.  He violates the separation of powers.  He damages the Constitution.  The Constitution is the instrument that made the United States the kind of place that immigrants would want to come to.  Thus, the President achieves certain "ends" at very high cost.  Very few circumstances justify undermining our Constitution.  It is a sad day when our president breaks the oath he took to defend the Constitution of the United States by defying the very law it sets forth.  The President's plan is to create his own path to normalization. It would create precedents that Congress would have to deal with.  He is increasing the emphasis on "anchor babies" as the way to get into the U.S.  He is choosing who gets lenient treatment and how. This is the purview of Congress, not the President.

The president is also not being forthright about the legitimate concerns that have prevented bipartisan legislation from being passed during his term.  They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.  If we do nothing substantive about how we patrol our borders, we'll just have another 10 million illegal immigrants 5 years from now.  We need major border security initiatives to accompany major changes in legal status.   As Charles Krauthammer said, Americans want to embrace hard-working illegal immigrants--as long as we know that "this is the last cohort" who will come in illegally.

A nation without borders is not a nation.  When Rome ceased to defend its borders, it fell.  When the native Americans allowed Europeans to overrun them, their nations were marginalized.  Borders matter.  Period.

I know it is hard to believe, but bipartisan solutions do in fact exist.  They take time, energy, and humility.  Humility is not an attribute I have seen in President Obama.  We need leadership, not gamesmanship.  And whatever we do, The Constitution DOES matter.

Thoughts from F.A. Hayek: The Road to Serfdom

I recently read "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek, first published in 1944.  I really liked the book.  Hayek has great insight into human nature and social organization. The main theme of his book is that an overly powerful state will eventually make its citizen's slaves to a set of values chosen by the bureaucratic elite.  Nazi Germany is exhibit A.  Hayek grew up in Austria and knew the history of Germany's socialism first hand.  He shows that  Germany's National Socialism was the natural conclusion to the expanding power of the state promoted by earlier socialists.

Hayek also provides a history lesson of the term "liberalism".  Because the United States began its existence based on liberal ideas of freedom and self government, the word  "conservative" has taken on a strange meaning for Americans.  To be conservative in the U.S. is to uphold that original liberalism.  Hayek, being from Europe, where the liberal ideas never reached their fullest expression, was striving for that liberalism.  Hayek took issue with the fact that in America, statism (the movement to increase the influence of the state) was mischaracterized as liberalism. (Hayek later wrote this 1960 essay: Why I am not a Conservative, an interesting look at political brand names.)

I'd like to share some of my favorite passages from the book. Hayek was inspired by Tocqueville.  He uses this quote early in the book:

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality.  But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality of liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." (Ch 2, Pg 77)

Hayek noticed that socialists took the liberal idea of freedom and corrupted it into the idea of "freedom from want".   He said:

"What the [socialist] promise [of freedom] really amounted to was that the great existing disparities in the range of choice of different people were to disappear.  The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for an equal distribution of wealth. But the new name gave the socialists something in common with the liberals and they exploited it to the full....what was promised to us as the Road to Freedom was in fact the High Road to Servitude".

Hayek saw that when bureaucrats plan the economy, they subvert the efficient transmission of price information.  This inevitably leads to less efficiency and to distortions such as we see with our health care system.

"The important point here is that the price system will fulfill this function only if competition prevails, that is, if the individual producer has to adapt himself to price changes and cannot control them.  The  more complicated the whole [economic system], the more dependent we become on that division of knowledge between individuals whose separate efforts are coordinated by the impersonal mechanism for transmitting the relevant information known by us as the price system." (Ch 4, Pg 95)

Hayek demonstrated that economic planners cannot foresee all the unintended consequences of their plans, no matter how gifted they may be intellectually.

"We all find it difficult to bear to see things left undone which everybody must admit are both desirable and possible.  That these things cannot all be done at the same time, that any one of them can be achieved only at the sacrifice of others, can be seen only by taking into account factors which fall outside any specialism...which lie outside our immediate interest and for which, for that reason, we care less." (Ch 4, Pg 98, italics added)

 He is adept at showing that simply because a nation is democratic, it is not necessarily free from arbitrary use of power.

"There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary; the contrast suggested by this statement is altogether false: it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary." (Ch 5: Planning and Democracy, Pg 111)

I think Hayek's most important contribution is in the area of values and state morality.  He shows that governments that plan the economy also control morality.  That is, the rulers push their values and their quest for certain ends onto all people. We recently saw how certain views on contraception were pushed onto Americans by arbitrary rule makers empowered by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

[The government] must, of necessity, take sides, impose its valuations upon people and, instead of assisting them in the advancement of their own ends, choose the ends for them.  As soon as [an interest-promoting] law is made, it ceases to be a mere instrument to be used by the people and becomes instead an instrument used by the lawgiver upon the people and for his ends.  The state ceases to be a piece of utiltarian machinery intended to help individuals in the fullest development of their individual pesonality and becomes a "moral" institution which imposes on its members its views on all moral questions, whether these views be moral or highly immoral. In this sense the Nazi or any other collectivist state is "moral," while the liberal state is not. (Ch 6: Planning and the Rule of Law, Pg 117)

"And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower--in short, what men should believe and strive for." (Ch 7: Economic Control and Totalitarianism, Pg 127)

"To undertake the direction of the economic life of people with widely divergent ideals and values is to assume responsibilities which commit one to the use of force; it is to assume a position where the best intentions cannot prevent one from being forced to act in a way which to some of those affected must appear highly immoral." (Ch 15: Prospects for International Order, Pg 116)

In my view, the moral nature of state planning makes statism a secular religion.  Only, it is a religion that is forced on others via the ballot box rather than by persuasion.

Hayek makes the distinction between arbitrary rule and the Rule of Law.  Arbitrary rule becomes necessary when the state attempts to plan the entire economy, because lawmakers cannot foresee all the minutia involved.  The movement toward arbitrary rule is exemplified in the U.S. by the tendency to turn over ever more power to unelected alphabet-soup agencies run by the executive branch.

"It is the Rule of Law, in the sense of the rule of formal law, the absence of legal privileges of particular people designated by authority, which safeguards that equality before the law which is the opposite of arbitrary government...It may even be said the for the Rule of Law to be effective it is more important that there should be a rule applied always without exceptions than what this rule is.Often the content of the rule is indeed of minor importance, provided that the same rule is universally enforced." (Ch. 6 Pg. 117)

"By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may setup the most complete despotism imaginable." (Pg. 119)

The book also touches on themes that are probably agreed upon by everyone.  Nobody tired of negative campaign advertising will take issue with this:

"It seems to be almost a law of nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program--on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task.  The contrast between the "we" and the "they," the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action." (Ch. 10, Why the Worst Get On Top, Pg 160)

"If the members of one's group cannot all be personally known, they must at least be of the same kind as those around us, think and talk in the same way and about the same kinds of things, in order that we may identify ourselves with them. Collectivism on a world scale seems to be unthinkable--except in the service of a small ruling elite." (Pg 161)

And if you've ever uttered the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", this should ring true to you:

"To split or decentralize power is necessarily to reduce the absolute amount of power, and the competitive system is the only system designed to minimize by decentralizing the power exercised by man over man... 

Economic power, while it can be an instrument of coercion, is, in the hands of private individuals, never exclusive or complete power, never power over the whole life of a person. But centralized as an instrument of political power it creates a degree of dependence scarcely distinguishable from slavery."  (Pg 166)

Hayek's one line summary of what created Nazism:

"It was the union of the anti-capitalist forces of the Right and of the Left, the fusion of radical and conservative socialism, which drove out from Germany everything that was liberal." (Ch. 12 The Socialist Roots of Naziism, pg 182)

Hayek also covers the tendency of statists to believe that their planning is justified by scientific evidence or intellectual superiority.  He felt that scientists helped enable the rise of Nazism.

"The influence of these scientist-politicians was of late years not often on the side of liberty: the 'intolerance of reason' so frequently conspicuous in the scientific specialist, the impatience with the ways of the ordinary man so characteristic of the expert, and the contempt for anything which was not consciously organized by superior minds according to a scientific blueprint were phenomena familiar in German public life for generations before they became of significant in England...It is well known that particularly the scientists and engineers, who had so loudly claimed to be the leaders on the march to a new and better world, submitted more readily than almost any other class to the new tyranny [of National Socialism]."  (Ch 13:The Totalitarians In Our Midst)

He felt that scientists have a tendency toward statism because they believe people obey scientific laws the same way inanimate objects do:

"Those who argue that we have to an astounding degree learned to master the forces of nature...[are mistaken when they] argue that we must learn to master the forces of society in the same manner in which we have learned to master the forces of nature.  This is not only the path to totalitarianism but the path to the destruction of our civilization and a certain way to block future progress.   Those who demand it show by their very demands they they have not yet comprehended the extent to which the mere preservation of what we have so far achieved depends on the coordination of individual efforts by impersonal forces." (Ch 14 Material Conditions and Ideal Ends, Pg 212)

Hayek understood human society.  It is true that the rise of Eurosocialism has yet to create a repeat of Nazi Germany. But to a degree, every one of Hayek's observations has been born out again and again.  Canadians face penalties for bypassing state health care.  Green-lobby scientists push for greater government control of energy use around the world.  Americans are being told when and how much health insurance to buy.  Expanding governments have distorted housing markets, healthcare markets, and debt markets.  Regulatory barriers impede business creation and reduce competition.  Interest groups control the tax code for special treatment.  Hayek's work foresaw all of this.  Hayek has something to teach us about our contemporary political and economic challenges.

Why Gay Marriage Is Not an Inalienable Right

I'd like to preface this discussion first by saying that I sincerely wish happiness and peace to everyone, especially my gay friends and fellow citizens. My thoughts here were provoked by a concern over the fact that rights-based arguments that fail to draw a distinction between inalienable rights and vested rights are endangering our freedom. The LGBT community (hereafter just "gay") should be equally concerned about the direction this country is taking with regard to inalienable rights. Neither gays nor natural family advocates should have to worry that government will infringe on their inalienable rights. What follows is my attempt to revive a proper view of rights and see how we can best meet everyone's needs fairly.

I'm amazed that people can get away with the rights-based argument for gay marriage. It is an astounding misunderstanding of individual rights. Gays have the inalienable right to do what they want with other like minded adults. But marriage is an institution that implies the blessing of others. You cannot demand that other people give you their blessing. It is their individual right to give it or withhold it.

The judge who overruled California's Prop 8 today relied on the argument that "Proposition 8 singles out gays and lesbians and legitimates their unequal treatment" and "[it] was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples".

In 1983, Martin Luther King Jr. Day became a national holiday. This was a great honor for a great man. The creation of this holiday cost the federal government an extra day of holiday pay to every federal worker. Doesn't MLK Day discriminate against all other great Americans who were denied the honor of having a day named for them? I guess all these other Americans "aren't as good" as Mr. King. That is a glass-half-empty argument that should be rejected.

When people democratically decide to bestow an honor on someone or a group of people (such as 9/11 workers) it is not a disparagement of the rights of anyone else. And honors such as these are not rights! You cannot demand that somebody else think well of you.

Gay marriage which is forced onto a people undemocratically is a violation of their right to honor whom they will. Take away the economic benefits (which shouldn't be that much anyway in a limited government society) and marriage is nothing but a blessing of your peers. You cannot demand that blessing, it has to be given freely. I have the right to band together with like-minded individuals to give my blessings to whom I may. Government is one way in which people band together.

The fact is, there is only one pairing of human beings that has a perpetual risk of bringing new people into the world: heterosexual unions. Gay unions might have kids from prior marriages or from adoption, but they never have to run the risk of pregnancy planned or otherwise. This special character of heterosexual union makes it fundamentally different than gay union no matter what activist judges may believe. We can give the emperor a new set of clothes, but nobody will be fooled. If some people want to give their blessing to couples who will be creating new members of society, that is their right. Gays can ask for a similar blessing, but it is not an inalienable right to receive it.

If Gays really believed in inalienable rights they would demand that the government stop giving preferential treatment to anyone. Asking that they receive preferential treatment on par with heterosexuals still leaves huge unfairness gaps. What about single parents? What about Catholic Nuns? Shouldn't they have a life partner that can make decisions for them when they are incapacitated? How about two celibate males who live together as friends and are soul-buddies? Why are they "singled out" for discriminatory exclusion from marriage and all the appertaining benefits? You know I'm right. If there is anything that needs to be fixed it is first, we shouldn't be doling out benefits at tax payer expense to any special groups. Second, if we need to fix the law to enable significant-other visitation rights, power of attorney rights, etc. all we need is a "life partner" law. It wouldn't be marriage, it would just be a special legal instrument to fulfill a broad need. Third, marriage should be left to the private sector.

Life partner laws, private marriage, inalienable rights. Problem solved.